Gain Some Colorwork Skill with the Forage Sweater

I love a good sweater with a little bit of colorwork. Whether it’s a circular yoke or a raglan with colorwork at the top, or even just a sweater with a stripe, adding some color to a sweater makes it both more fun to knit and more fun to wear, without increasing the difficulty much.

The Forage Sweater by Knitting Expat is a great first colorwork sweater project. It’s a top-down raglan with an easy colorwork design that can be worked all in one color or in as many as five different colors if you have stash you’re trying to get through or just like a lot of color in your colorwork.

With colorwork and raglan shaping happening at once, the beginning of the project is pretty exciting, while the rest of the body is smooth (and quick) sailing in solid color Stockinette. It’s available in 10 sizes and you can make it cropped, high low or regular length as you like.

The pattern is available on Ravelry for £10, or there are pay what you can options.

[Photo: Knitting Expat Designs.]

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I happen to live in the Northern Hemisphere, but I know we have a lot of Southern Hemisphere friends, too, who are heading into the cooler months as we are warming up. Whichever one of the seasons you’re in, you might want to stitch up this sweet little hood.

This pattern by saskie&co is called snug hood and it uses two colors of yarn to make a close-fitting pixie style hood (almost a balaclava but it doesn’t cover your face, though there is a neck covering portion to keep you a little warmer). You can use the fingering weight wool and mohair held together that are called for in the pattern, or use a single strand of DK weight yarn.

The neck portion and the edging around the face are worked in ribbing in a single color, while the body of the hat includes an allover colorwork flower pattern. The project is worked both flat and in the round and there is colorwork that is knit flat, which means you’ll have to purl in colorwork (which some people don’t like; also, you can’t see what you’re doing as well on the back of the work).

The pattern comes in one size and the colorwork is charted. Testers noted this is a quick and easy project and a great way to learn some new skills (chart reading, working stranded colorwork flat) if you’ve never tried those things before. They noted the hood is cute, comfortable and warm, and a few said it didn’t take as much yarn as the pattern suggests, so bear that in mind if you’re trying to use stash.

Speaking of the pattern notes, check out all the cute color variations in the projects on Ravelry. From pink and red to blue and white to gray and cream, there are lots of great options to think about.

You can buy this pattern on Ravelry.

[Photo: saskie&co]

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